


Try Again

by StarshineInTheDark



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Blackmail, Child Abuse, Child Soldiers, Evil Corporations, Human Experimentation, Kidnapping, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Psychological Torture, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:33:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23520133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarshineInTheDark/pseuds/StarshineInTheDark
Summary: Held captive against their will, Kageyama, Hinata, Tsukishima and Yamaguchi experience the tortures of mind shattering and body breaking human experimentation, imprisoned by an organization that wishes to produce super human soldiers. With the lives of their loved ones in the organization's hands, they are forced to go through inexplicable trials that would eventually scar them for the rest of their lives.Warning: Blood, Gore, Torture, Human experimentation and General Suffering.(Might rewrite summary)
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio, Hinata Shouyou/Kozume Kenma, Kuroo Tetsurou/Tsukishima Kei, Tsukishima Kei/Yamaguchi Tadashi
Comments: 40
Kudos: 102





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I know I’m supposed to be updating my other fics, but this is where my inspiration has lead me to in these trying times of writers block. While I try to figure out how to go about postponing my updates (and looking for a beta cause I DESPERATELY need a Beta.), here’s another story full of the angst, pain and suffering you lovable psychos like to read. Bon-apetite 😊
> 
> (Ps: I’m sorry I can only write pain 🙏)

**Unclean Hands Can No Longer Feel**

**022: 1**

A chill swayed along the gentle wisps of night air, brushing against doleful, battered skin that quivered and shook like the careening, desiccated leaves drowning in the tender drafts of wind. A tremble running deeper than the cold of the dark could have been felt a mile away, the darkness penetrating through obscured shadows wrapping its thin veins around bitter, unfeeling hands, like the black tendrils fleecing into the hidden corners of a small, Tokyo alleyway. Hands that could no longer feel the warmth bleeding out of human skin. Or the shaking, quivering hands of the man breathing his final gasps of cold, dry air into damaged lungs, his hand clenched over the locket around his paling neck, as if in a last-ditch effort to save it.

He almost felt a spark of pity at the pathetic sight.

It was kind of admirable… the tenacity of the human mind. How willing it was to fight till the very end. It was just about, _nearly_ enough to allow the man the dignity of breathing his last on his own, with his final thoughts and acceptance of his death dying along with his final exhale.

_It’s a shame_ , he thought, twirling the knife in his hands and stabbing it cleanly through his heart, blood squelching out of the man’s chest in tandem with the one dripping from blue tinted lips.

_It’s a shame it was as pitiful as it was_ _useless_.

He withdrew his hand from the knife’s hilt, kneeling at the man’s side and silently clapping his hands together as he offered a prayer for the departed soul to the heavens. He prayed that the gates would be kind to the dead scientist he’d been asked to kill, prayed that his spirit would find happiness where it couldn’t in the cruel, brutality of the Earth, prayed for his remaining family, and that they would be at peace when it was their turn to leave, just as the scientist had. He prayed for all the people he’d slain in this single night. But never for himself.

Heaven didn’t accept demons whose hands and heart were tarnished and blackened in sin.

He waited till the man’s pulse died down to nothing, blood no longer oozing down whitened skin, and the hand gripped over the locket loosened till its fingers could no longer grasp at the silver metal, stained red with blood and dirt of a dead man. Without a hint of care, he swiped at the locket, breaking the chain around the scientist’s neck, and pried open the latch with uncaring fingers. He didn’t falter at the cropped picture of the little girl rested within it.

He flicked the photograph to the side, picking up the small, meager bottle at the base of the locket, observing its contents, before placing it back inside and stuffing it into a sealed pocket.

“ _Serum acquired_ ,” he muttered into the comm in his ear, voice loud enough to be perceived through the communication line, but subtle enough that no one within six feet could be able to hear him. He rose up to his feet, drawing his hood over dark hair and obscuring dark, blue eyes from the light of the moon, hiding them in the shadows it belonged to. The comm crackled before the voice on the other side responded in turn.

“ _Good job, 022. Return to Base immediately_.”

Even without being in the presence of the Commander, he still nodded as though he were, tightening his grip on the pocket and leaping up the fire escape without effort, leaving behind the lifeless body of the brunet male, and a pool of blood too thick to ever remove from the once clean gravel.

……..

**Day 1: Pre-Experimentation**

**First Hour**

_“HEY, LET ME OUT OF HERE!” Kageyama’s sore fists banged against thick transparent walls, his heart thumping erratically as his anxiety and terror mounted, panic running rampant through every vein in his body as he fought to remember how he’d ended up in a place that wasn’t his home, or his school, or in any way familiar._

_He barely remembered even leaving his house for volleyball practice, having woken up in this bare, empty room besides the bed he laid upon and the single vent placed above him in the direct center of the ceiling. Bright lights filled the isolated box he was trapped in, despite not having a direct source or origination, and no matter where Kageyama looked, he could feel the burn against his eyes as though someone was pointing a torch directly into his irises._

_He could feel the constant throb of pressure as the intensity of the lights continued to torment his sight even when he closed them, could feel endless humming on every edge of his skin, could feel the cold, tightness of the ring trapped around his throat._

_He’d felt the thing earlier, during his first minutes of gaining consciousness; the cold, metallic ring encircling his neck, its smooth surface embellished with nothing else but pillared grooves positioned around it like the four cardinal points of a compass. Running his fingers over them, they’d felt less metallic and more like a fragile version of the metal itself, but still as strong. Still as solid._

_Pushing and tugging against them stung and hurt in a way that made it seem like they’d penetrated through his skin and into muscle. Although, he could only assume it was. He’d tried to remove the collar directly before, pulling harshly against the ring. The only result he’d been able to achieve had been the horrible sensation of knives being driven through his neck, and a horrifying awareness of how far the things had impaled into his throat. At that moment he’d never felt a more deeper panic._

Where on Earth was he?

……………

Base was cold as usual, measuring at a stifling -25 degrees under five thousand feet below the chilling mountains of Akita. It was kept freezing due to the insufferable temperature difference between the underground, its surrounding environment, and above world, forcing the inhabitants of the basement building to shield themselves in thick, layered ensembles and frost resistant coatings.

022’s clothes were made to suit any temperature, not that he himself needed much of its excessive conveniences as much as he was given. He couldn’t feel much of it in the first place; due to his skin no longer able to bear the stifling chills of a frostbite, or the burns of heatwaves that would typically damage normal human skin. And the labs within were even colder, the air artificial and distinct from the oxygen compositing in the natural atmosphere, and so clearly smelt of antiseptics, chlorine, and that dense vapor that always seemed to remain stagnant and torpid in the ether.

He was acknowledged by the scientists as he strolled through the doors of the lab, faceless, masked individuals in ensembles that bore a resemblance to hazmat suits working on various sectors, systems and machines, and he in turn, acknowledged them in the same way they were regarded in his mind, which was to no extent at all.

“Here.” He tossed the locket across the air, and into the hands of a fumbling scientist who’d almost dropped the thing on the floor in his bid to capture it. He could see the relief emanating from them even with the mask over their head and their features concealed as the thing remained steady and didn’t end up crashing to the ground. _Lucky him_.

He’d have had a lot more to worry about than the broken veil if the thing had _so much_ as a hairline fracture on its surface.

Just as quickly as he’d entered the lab, 022 exited the frigid room and ventured over to Base Command where the Commander was stationed. He had to present his mission report, and relay to the Commander any extra casualties or errors that may have been made during the given assignment, before he was either sent on another one or ordered to wait till his next mission. It didn’t matter the time of day. The Commander would never order him to take a break unless he willed it.

Because he was 022. He was a soldier. He had no life except the one owned by the charge of his life, the Commander. And he had no reason to live except to kill, steal and give whatever it is his superiors wanted from his soul.

That’s how it had always been.

…………..

**Day 1: Pre-Experimentation**

**Third Hour**

_“HEEEYYY!” Kageyama pounded against the glass again, feeling the sweat lining his brow and the stings of his knuckles from aching, bruised skin, but refusing to give up on trying to break through the thick, transparent walls—which was beginning to feel less like glass and more like reinforced metal the further he went on—and only stopping once another thirty minutes of his relentless pummeling had brought forth no results besides a travelling ache in the majority of his limbs._

_“Damn it,” he cursed and slumped against the glass, feeling a chill rack up his entire body as the gleaming tiles beneath his bare feet turned cold in an instant, the suddenness of the temperature change causing him to physically jolt. That was the third time that the floors had done that in that day._ That meant he’d been there for over three hours. _Three… bloody… hours._

“Damn it, damn it, damn it!!!!”

_He grabbed his hair in his hands and pulled in frustration and deep-seated fear, his hands trembling before moving down to his face, fingers still loosely grasping on to light strands as he felt his entire body shake. He had the urge to scream. He had the urge to cry._

_“DAMNIT!” He yelled out this time, directing an angered glare to the ceiling, to the vent in the middle that was too high up and too small to reach or escape from. The place looked high techy enough to house the materials containing him in there. Someone was definitely watching. Someone was definitely listening._

“Hey! I know you can hear me! _” Kageyama screamed at the ceiling, hoping there was a camera or recorder or something up there that could see and feel the rage in his voice. “What do you want? Why are you keeping me here?!”_

_The silence that followed his question had been expected without a doubt._

_What he hadn’t expected was the loud, jolting noise coming from a place outside the room, and the bright light that emanated suddenly from beyond the transparent wall. He’d been unable to see the space outside the cube he was in before, only an encompassing, surrounding darkness the lights in the room didn’t dare to penetrate. However, twisting around, Kageyama’s eyes now feasted hungrily upon the world outside the cage, an unknown void once darkened to nothingness before, was now visible through spotlights springing from a ceiling that seemed to surpass the one’s of the cube._

_And Kageyama… didn’t like what he saw._

……….

022 gave the mission report as he always had. Direct and straight to the point without any cuts or reroutes, without any errors, without any mistakes because he wasn’t permitted to make any. He stood at attention, arms behind his back and eyes staring straight ahead while he awaited his Commander’s commentary.

The man himself, as usual, stood on a platform feet higher than the grounds he traversed upon, his eyes always gazing down upon him, a coldness he needed no contact to feel wafting off his very being despite being far apart in distance. This was the Base Command. A room full of more faceless, armed Suits, screens alight with several modules of information ranging from site locations to individual profiles and identifications, and a chill that traveled deeper than just skin and bones. It was quiet. It was arctic. And it was the only sort of cold he could ever _feel_ beyond just numb skin.

The White Suits never tried to venture near the space between or around him and Commander, and they wouldn’t dare to. It was the coldest area in the room, after all.

They would simply freeze.

“Any blunders during the mission?”

“None, sir,” he responded efficiently, eyes still trained on the space in front of him and never above him. 022 never needed to maintain eye contact with Commander. There was no need to. He could always tell if he was lying or not without it. “Dr. Nakamura was disposed of before he could flee. I left no evidence.”

“Witnesses?”

“None.”

“And Dr. Nakamura’s research?”

“Taken care of and destroyed, sir.”

Commander barely hummed as he took a moment to dwell on his report, merely a second passing by before the man above decided to speak again.

“Excellent as usual, 022.” If there was pride in his voice, he did not react or respond to it, in the same way Commander felt no similar attachments to his most prized human weapon that went beyond mere satisfaction. He was simply revered as what he was; a competent, capable servant, and nothing more. 022 clenched the wrist positioned at his back even tighter. “Dr. Kaname is waiting for you in Lab 39 with a reward for your good work.” Even without having to look up, he could tell the man had backed him now, his eyes turned to the brightest screen in the room, and his hands folded behind him with an unwavering indifference. “You are dismissed until your next assignment.”

At the dismissal, 022 nodded and released his clenched hands from behind him, bowing slightly in an obligatory sign of deference as he acknowledged his superior’s orders. “Yes sir.”

He turned to leave quickly, the Suits making way for him as he withdrew himself from the room, passing through the sliding doors without so much as a glance back, or a falter in his steps. No one noticed the extra grit of his jaw or the tightness of his fists as he stalked away, and if anyone did, they were better off pretending they didn’t.

Already halfway down the passage, the door he’d just left could be heard hissing open and closed, and 022 was just barely able to catch sight of another individual, donned in a suit similar to his.

……….

**Day 1: Pre-Examination**

**Third Hour**

_Outside his own cage, were similar, square boxes, all spread out at equal, far distances, and each holding a prisoner of their own. In a normal instance—considering the spectrum of normalcy he was in—he’d have been surprised, confused maybe, to have seen other people trapped in boxes like he was. However, the exact emotions he’d felt welling up had been nothing else if not indescribable, as he saw the other prisoners were none other than his teammates, each in similar states of dress and disarray, all wearing the equally as large, pure white hospital gowns that stopped a little ways past their knees, each of their necks encased in cold, silver rings, and each of them in a similar state of confusion and fear, anxiety of several facets painted across their individual features._

_Kageyama could feel his breath cut short._

Hinata… Yamaguchi… Tsukishima…!!!

_He looked around and saw no one else. He could really only see, in the expanse of the larger space, four lone cubes._

Had it only been them?

_“Tsukishima! Yamaguchi! Hinata!!!” Kageyama banged against the glass with the side of his fist, yelling in the direction of the cube opposite him, the one where Hinata was in. The short ginger-haired male seemed to be yelling back in turn, fists pounding against glass, frantic despair etched on every feature as he screamed at him, his teammates, in desperation._

_However, no matter how loud the other might have been, Kageyama couldn’t seem to hear anything he was saying._

_“Hinata!” The other male, if he read his lips, looked to have been calling out his own name in turn, banging against the wall with one hand in a less forced and more desperate fashion. Adjacent to Hinata was Tsukishima, trying to yell out Yamaguchi’s name who was placed in a box opposite to the blonde, and adjacent to Kageyama on his left. He couldn’t hear them either._

_He couldn’t hear any of them._

_He couldn’t hear them yelling, or hitting the glass, or calling out each other’s names. Kageyama could only just look at them and the unfiltered apprehension settled in on each of their faces, could only just knock against the walls, scream, and get nothing in return. Could only just do_ nothing.

_He could only stand there, unable to do a thing besides wait._

_And for what he was waiting for, he didn’t think he wanted to know._

_Every part of him was just hoping this was all a well-crafted, elaborate prank, conducted by his seniors as revenge for being an arrogant, commanding setter._

………….

022 wasn’t the only human weapon.

He’d known this, for as long as he’d been here.

He wasn’t the only one they’d trained, tortured, and forced to go through severe body and mind breaking trials that tested the limits of their human capacity. He was aware of who they were, and what they’d been before, and what they hadn’t been, and what they were going to be. He just couldn’t pay them any mind, nor could he acknowledge them in any form or manner.

022 didn’t try do unnecessary things.

And trying to reach out to them was unnecessary. It was something he was sure the rest of them already knew. It was one of the reasons they’d never spoken to each other, and had never been allowed to. Not since the first day. They dwelled in different wings of the Base for one. And there had never been an ample, fulfilling reason to look for them, or contact them, or talk to them, or see them. None that Commander would have allowed in the first place. None that he’d care to know.

So why he’d paused, on the first sighting of cut, bright, ginger hair—hair he hadn’t seen in _years_ —disappearing through the doors of Base Command, his steps faltering, his heart stopping, and his pulse flickering,

He wasn’t sure.

The only thing he was certain of, however, was that the sensations he felt welling up within threatened to consume him, and that he had to run as far away, as quickly as possible, as soon as possible, before it could.

…………

**Day 1: Pre-Experimentation**

**Sixth Hour**

_He didn’t know how much time had passed, but it couldn’t have been long before he saw Hinata slumping down to the floor, back against the wall adjacent to the glass, and head angled downwards, rested on folded arms placed on top his knees. Kageyama released a sigh, feeling his heart welt. He felt just as helpless._

_So he sat down, and leaned his back on the floor._

_Only to jerk back up as an abrupt, high-pitched screeching_ static _rang through his ears all too suddenly._

_Kageyama’s hands shot to his ears, pressing the heels of his palms against them as the high-pitched noise vibrated within his head and pounded against his skull. It hurt in a way he’d never felt, the noise pulsing through his eardrums louder than anything he’d ever experienced. It travelled through every corner of his head, and even after a few seconds it didn’t stop._

He was going to faint… _He felt his vision tilt as the shrill blast only seemed to increase in intensity, spreading through the walls of his skull like an engorging forest fire. He screamed as he felt his ears ring and throb in pain, and he pressed his forehead against the cold floors, hands still pressed to his ears, knees shaking on the ground as the torment continued for nearly over a minute._

_When it stopped, he was lain on the floor, fingers grasping at the strands of his hair, his head throbbing as pain mounted it from all sides. His ears still rang, despite the assault having ceased._

**_ “Welcome, new participants of the Human Life Renewal Innovation Program,” _ **

**__ **

_A voice spoke suddenly, originating from an unknown source, and echoing across every corner of the room, mechanical and robotic, like that of someone who wasn’t human. Clutching his still pounding head, Kageyama rolled against the floor till he was glaring at the ceiling, uncapping one hand from his ear and pressing it against the cold tiles to raise himself up from the ground. Kageyama let the words repeat themselves within his mind._ Human life… what?

**_ “From today, you will be registered as sanctioned, prerequisite volunteers—” _ **

****

_Volunteers…?_

**_ “—Of our experimentation program, from now henceforth, and will be required to conform accordingly. The consequences are dire if insurgence of any form is perceived. I repeat, please conform accordingly to any laid down rules or procedures—” _ **

**__ **

_“Wait…” An ache travelled through Kageyama’s skull as he motioned to rise, his vision swaying a tad, and his ears still ringing, still buzzing with the side-effects of the high-pitched shriek. “W-what do you mean..?” Kageyama fumed, glaring at the ceiling again, this time directing his anger to the voice speaking through the walls of the cube, his confusion bleeding through every waver of his tone._

_Volunteering meant he signed up for something willingly. There was no way he’d have signed up for something like this. There was no way he’d have willingly wanted to be imprisoned and collared and tormented like this. And definitely not with his teammates involved._

_Kageyama grit his teeth, about to raise his voice once more at the lady speaking through the walls, frustration building up within, when there was a sudden, loud, hissing sound coming from the corner of the room. An engravement on the wall the size and shape of a door slid open, and for a while he couldn’t see anything past the threshold besides an unwavering darkness where the lights wouldn’t reach. He frowned, tilting his head in confusion. Where they… letting them go…?_

**_“ Please do not resist command,” _ ** _the disembodied voice ordered, just as two men covered in white full body suits and white masks marched in from the darkness, startling Kageyama as he took in their quickly approaching forms. **“ The Human Life Renewal Supervisory Unit will now be taking you to the testing ground. Do not retaliate. Resistance is futile.”**_

****

_Kageyama quickly backed away from them, fists raised and everything within him ready to retaliate despite the warnings of the voice from the speakers, and the fear and uncertainty he could feel coursing through his being. He didn’t know what was happening, but there was no way in hell he was letting these guys take him. Not without a fight._

………….

“You’re angry.”

He’d nearly jolted the needles in his arms out of place, startling at Dr. Kaname’s words, the picture grasped in his hands almost dropping to the floor. He blinked in the doctor’s general direction, taking a moment to right himself and his posture, before responding as though he hadn’t just lost his composure.

“I’m not.”

Dr. Kaname smiled, and turned away. He didn’t believe him. “Whatever you say, 022.”

………….

_The suited men continued to near him, even with his body postured in an effort to resist, and the fight he had alight in his eyes, their own eyes were unseen behind unfeeling masks, and their gloved hands held nothing but short, silver batons in their clutches as they moved with every intent to restrain him. Kageyama tightened his fists and dug the sole of his foot into the ground._ He wasn’t going to let them take him.

_He let the thought run through him like a mantra, even though all he could feel was an ever-rising panic, an all-consuming fear, and an apprehension so deep he could think of nothing to quell it._ He wasn’t going to let them take him _._

_Kageyama’s mind ran rampant as he thought of plans to escape on the spot._

_In spite of the cold, he felt sweat that wasn’t there line his temples._

He could come at them with the intention to hit. _It should work_. They’d be surprised for a second… but if he could use that second, while the door was still open, he’d be able to—

_Surprise seized his bones as the shrill, high-pitched noise rang through his ears, reechoing across the room as it had done before, and bringing him to his knees once more._

_Kageyama screamed, clutching his head and ears._

_It hurt worse than before._

_Unable to physically fight against the noise itself, he and his teammates were forced to endure it for what felt like several minutes, his head threatening to split in half through the extent of time, and his ears ringing and aching and bleeding within, an inferno so ablaze inside his skull it might have well been on fire. His throat rang hoarse, innards raw in his screams for them to “_ Stop! Stop it PLEASE!”

_By the time they’d chosen to stop, he was on the floor again, crouched unmoving and in pain from the lingering impacts of the torment, handfuls of hair gripped tightly within his fists as he once more, found his head pressed against the floor, his breaths coming out in rapid pants, heart beating ever so erratically he thought it would come out of his chest._

_His hands shook._

He was in so much pain.

_This time, as the white suited people—who didn’t seem to be affected by the piercing sound in the slightest—approached him, he didn’t move from the ground, not until they’d gripped at his arms, cold, unfeeling hands tightening their hold around his biceps, and raised him from the floor without ample effort, neither even giving him a chance to recover before he was being hauled out of the room. Kageyama stumbled for a moment before he was able to find his footing, and proceeded to follow along between them without much resistance, his head throbbing and aching all the while, and the drumming in his ears lingering longer than it had before._


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It would be nice. To fall to his death and free the skin so heavily scarred and cold and numb that it no longer felt like his. It would be nice to allow himself succumb to the feeling of drowning, sinking and fading till he became nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can't believe this took me a whole ass 8 months ;-;  
> Thank God for inspiration.
> 
> TW: Drowning, suicidal thoughts.... and the usual torture hehe...

**To Forget Is to No Longer Exist**

**015: 1**

_If he was given the chance, he’d jump, and plummet, and fall as far and as freely as he could_. 

Not that he actually could, in reality. _Not really_ , he thought, staring past the opening of the helicopter as it flew above a fairly large yacht floating in the waters of the Okhotsk Sea in the middle of the night, strands of lengthy blonde hair blowing back with the heavily fanning wind against his face, his eyes shielded by a translucent mask, preventing the gusts of cold air from haltering his vision. _Not that he actually could, but he’d like to_.

It would be nice. To fall to his death and free the skin so heavily scarred and cold and numb that it no longer felt like his. _It would be nice to allow himself succumb to the feeling of drowning, sinking and fading till he became nothing_.

015 knew he wasn’t allowed to do that though.

He’d tried it before, and the outcome had _not_ been pleasant.

_What an inconvenience_. He felt his brow twitch with that feeling of annoyance and something else that came on every so often when the thought of plunging a knife through his neck crossed his mind. 015 purposefully ignored the short Suit trying to hand him a parachute to assist in his landing, almost like he’d sensed his thoughts and was trying to tell him ‘Take this so you don’t die again.’

He clicked his tongue.

He didn’t need it.

Tightening the beanie over his head, he took one step over the edge of the helicopter, and fell.

……………

**Day 1: Pre-Examination- Test#1**

**Seventh Hour**

_Each of them had been taken through different passageways without being able to so much as speak to one another._

_The hallways were long, narrow and winded, with so much turns and lifts, that Tsukishima was unable to keep up after the 22 nd break to the right with an immediate turn to a left hallway. It was almost like they were trying to confuse him on purpose, an act he found both annoying and problematic._

_Even more annoying, was the constant reminder that they’d taken away his glasses seeing as how all he could make out were meaningless blurs and unidentifiable contortions, marred signs and distorted images that refused to make sense despite how hard he squinted, or the questions he demanded to be asked—questions which had been blatantly ignored by the two white suited men hauling him by the arms in their bruising grip. However, Tsukishima could, at least, partially make out some engravements on the wall that looked distinctively like numbers, a few doors lining the halls, and a few more white-suited people that passed by them on the way._

_He could also make out the diminution in the intensity of light the deeper they traversed, the unwavering pressure that constrained his limbs the more he walked and ventured into unknown waters, the fear and heart withering anxiety that made its presence more vivid and more distinct as they finally stopped after what had to be several, long minutes, and paused before a plain, white door with silver engravements and the numbers ‘ **15** ’ inscribed on the top. They halted their footsteps, and the grip on his arms tightened._

He was here.

_He felt a deep-rooted dread pool at the base of his stomach._

_He didn’t want to be here._

_Not for the first time, he found himself wanting to dig his heels into the ground and protest against being dragged into the room of uncharted terrain, despite knowing it was going to be a wasted effort, and would more than likely send that skull splitting, headache inducing shock through his head and ears if he resisted again._

_The door slid open with a cold hiss, the men holding him finally pushing him inside without preamble, keeping their grips tight and pace unwavering as he was lead further and further._

_All the while his heart raced a thousand miles per hour, and Tsukishima, once again found himself regretting every second he didn’t fight back_.

…………..

The drop from the helicopter was precisely 100km.

He sailed through the air like it was a feat heavily ingrained into his system, positioning his body so he streamlined across the arduous wind speed and pushed through until he penetrated the freezing water like a well-seasoned marine creature. The temperature of the sea was like ice against his skin, and would have been able to kill him had he been a normal human.

For 015, the cold was merely a bothersome nuisance, and it didn’t take any feasible amount of effort to swim the remaining one mile to the underside of the target ship, where a backdoor had already been made available in a hidden sector in order to avoid a compromise of his position, and consequently, anyone having to die.

The storage room he’d snuck into was thankfully empty, occupied by crates upon crates of full, bottled ancient wine and liquor, surfaces dusty with age and marred by time with dirt and moisture decay. He discarded his soaked beanie and goggles, and made his way to one of the stacks by the left corner, unboxing the second crate, and eyeing the artillery and armaments Command had left for his usage.

A gun.

_He was to eliminate someone_. 015 picked up the weapon and weighed it in his hands, relaying the instructions handed to him, and feeling for the gun maneuverability and dexterity. A Kahr P-380. He hummed. _Efficient_.

He cocked the weapon and leaned in against the wall to the near right center, listening in for passersby to ensure he wouldn’t procure any plausible witnesses. He preferred to move when the coast was clear. It would make his recon mission a lot easier without the extra body count.

And the Commander never liked it when he gave a witness report.

He let a minute pass before he knocked against the wooden walls quietly, waited a second, and then pushed against the dry surface till a portion of the wall unsheathed and swung forward, the hidden door creaking softly as he stepped over the threshold and onto the smooth, pristine purple carpets of the yacht’s interior, the decorated walls lined with shimmering lamps that glowed a majestic blue. Looking left, then right, he leaned against the wall, inhaled, exhaled, _repeated_ , then made his way to the right, in the direction of the boat’s general living quarters, feet silent as he traversed the short hall to a room behind the ship’s deck, the memorized blueprints and layout of the boat’s structure relaying in his mind’s eye.

About two guards were guarding the deck, both peering out at the sea as though they expected someone to attack them directly from the front.

Idiots.

015 flexed his hold on the gun, sneaking around them to the space directly underneath the living/sleeping quarters, easily finding the entrance the owner probably thought was a well -kept secret, and hopping straight onto the short, narrow hall separating the four rooms on the boat.

Laughter sprang from the second room to his right, and 015 activated the silencer of the gun.

_He’d make this quick_.

………….

**Day 1: Pre-Experimentation Test#1**

**Seventh Hour**

_Entering the room, hands shaking with unbridled nerves, he found he was the only one inside the lab, exempting the three other White-Suits that roamed about the space in the vicinity of a complicated looking machine. Besides them, besides the robotic, faceless suited individuals, and the unpleasant, terror-inducing machinery, he was the only one there._

_Yamaguchi wasn’t there. Neither were Kageyama and Hinata._

Where was he…?

_Tsukishima was only lead forward, question unanswered, as the distance between him, and the weird machine continued to close, nearer and nearer and nearer by each passing second._

_And the more he came closer, the more the blurred lines and shapes configured ever so slowly, the more he felt the dread pooling in his gut rise till it spilled from every inch of his being._

What on Earth… was that?

_Observing it, it looked exactly like a cylindrical cauldron, lain horizontally at a waist-height distance from the floor, with several tubes attached to the bottom of the cylinder, and those tubes connected to a copious amount of systems and computers operated on by the White-Suits themselves. Transparent besides the sides and underside, the thing was a frightening, cold, metal husk of wires and unidentifiable gizmo he wouldn’t have thought existed. And he was being led right to it._

_When he stopped moving, he was only pushed harder._

_“Step into the container,” one of the Suits—he didn’t know which one—the one operating on the machine, ordered, voice as robotic as the one that had spoken to him when he’d woken up in that cube. Tsukishima registered the command inside his head, and did nothing about it._

_“Step into the container, Subject 015,” they reiterated, voice remaining a constant state of monotony, but somehow becoming more forceful, more assertive. The hands on his biceps pushed him forward. He pushed back._

_And painful static travelled through his head for a second._

_“I won’t repeat myself again,” the Suit warned, their tone, for a moment, losing the ever so present evenness that seemed to define them. “Do as I say, Subject 015.”_

_Tsukishima, as slowly as he could, shook his head, a ‘no’ that was unable to leave his lips stemming from the slow, mulish action. He stepped back._

_He didn’t want to._

_A sigh, tired and disappointed in every sense of the two words, escaped from the Suit ordering him into the cauldron, and he could tell, even without the churning twisting at his insides, that he’d made his first mistake._

_The pain hit harder than it had before._

………..

015 stared at his work, lain in a mess of blood soaking through white, immaculate sheets, once unsullied and perfect and clean, now stained in a brilliant, deep crimson, immersing even deeper than the beddings, through the thick, expensive mattress, and staining more and more of its interior, seeping into spaces not even the hardest of brushes or the strongest of peroxides could penetrate, forever tainting it and soiling its purity till all that remained was a dark, bloodied reminder of what once was.

_How… poetic_.

He shot at the already dead body, aiming for the eyes and watching them implode and splatter in a majestically repulsive display of sprayed blood and eyeball particles, clicking his tongue as blood spilled from the eyeholes and down to the once pure-white pillow, staining it even more. It was disgusting.

Eyes locked in a state of fear, even in death, sickened him to his core.

_He would do his family members and friends a favor by not letting them see those eyes_.

Those horrific, disgusting eyes.

Turning off the room’s TV, 015 placed the gun in its holster, and hopped out the window and into the freezing ocean.

And even several meters away, about to board onto his getaway boat, he could hear the terrorized screams as the body of a brutally assassinated man was found lying in a pool of his own blood.

………….

**Day 1: Pre-Experimentation Test#1**

**Eighth Hour**

_After the torment that had echoed through his burning ears and throbbing head, Tsukishima had been too out of it to stop them from tossing him inside the container, his hands forced down and wrists encased in thick, plastic-like cuffs, injections protruding within the cuffs piercing through his skin and into his veins, and the needles themselves connected directly to the vessel with short, thin tubes._

_By the time they’d closed the top of the container over him, he knew it was too late to do anything about it._

_Tsukishima shook._

_The metal underneath his body felt colder than ice._

_His heart spiked when he felt the cauldron shift and move, lifting him even higher above the ground, the ceiling inching closer, and the machine whirring to life as it hummed and buzzed through every wire attached to the controlling systems. He couldn’t see beyond the containing walls of the vessel, and couldn’t hear either. Fear continued to spike through his chest as the hums prolonged into a constant buzz, and the pure, unblemished white of the ceiling felt more comforting to focus on, than the cold, metallic darkness of the container’s inner recesses._

_When the metal surrounding his body turned colder, he felt why._

Water.

_Water was filling up the container, slowly from the bottom, and working its way up, and even as it reached halfway past his head, it didn’t stop. He tugged at the cuffs, hissing painfully as it jostled the needles in his wrists._

_The water continued to rise._

_Tsukishima felt his breaths leave him in short bouts, panic gripping his limbs and seizing his thoughts._ He was going to drown… He was going to drown! _His brain screamed at him to store up oxygen and energy he was obviously going to need, but the fear was louder than the former. He struggled to loosen the cuffs holding his wrists to the base, his feet kicking at the end of the container, as if that would have done any immensurable good, and every inch of his being shaking and fighting and tugging even as the water continued to rise and increase, past his head, past his nose and to the very top of the container till he was completely submerged._

_Bubbles floated past his face as pockets of air escaped through his mouth._

_Tsukishima puffed out his cheeks and sealed his lips to conserve oxygen, the terror of the situation even more petrifying as he felt he his body float in the risen water. Discomfort prodded at his wrists._

He was trapped.

_His movements were even more slow and restricted in water, and trying to move them was wasted effort and energy he could use in conserving more oxygen. There was no way he was getting out. He tried to calm down._

_It wasn’t like they’d leave him like that forever. Why kidnap and trap a person only to kill them later? They wouldn’t leave him to die. It was illogical, and unreasonable, and soon enough he’d—_

_His thoughts ended and his muscles seized as an abrupt pain crackled through his body, and all of a sudden,_

He was on fire.

_His body arched and shook and he screamed into the water, all thoughts of preserving oxygen or energy gone from his mind as all he could feel was an immense, immeasurable_ inferno _shooting up his body, through his spine, across every nerve above his skin and within every muscle underneath it. He might as well have been burned alive. It was the only thing he could feel._

_Not the water, nor the lack of oxygen, nor the burning of his lungs, or the stinging in the veins of his arms._

_Just tormenting, excruciating agony from the tips of his hairs to the deepest burrows of every inch of his skin._

_It was the most painful thing he’d ever felt in his life._

_When the torture was over, and the water drained from the container, his body was left spasming and twitching on the cold, metal of its hard base, his heart pumping erratically, and throat sore as he hacked up water from his lungs, unfeeling of how it dripped down his nose and chin and the sides of his face. His wrists were blazing as though it had been pressed against a burner, but he almost couldn’t feel it. Not with the way his body trembled, and hands quivered, and throat burned as he coughed and coughed and fought the urge to sob._

_Tsukishima was shaking._

_He wanted out._

Let me out let me out let me out let me out—!!!

_The transparent concealment above him flashed red._

_And all too suddenly, the vessel was being filled with water again._

_His pupils dilated._

_“H-hey…”_ Wasn’t it over? Wasn’t one enough? How many times were they going to do this? _“W-what do you think you’re doing…? Stop already…” The container, and anyone else who might have been listening, blatantly ignored him, and continued to increase the height of the water to the level it had been before, all the way to the top. “Stop… I’ve had enough…!”_

_The water rose past his cheeks._

_“No… don’t—!” He tugged shakily at the restraints, shaking his head as he was submerged deeper into the quickly filling tank, his body floating once more as it was filled all the way to the peak of the brim._ No… not again. Not again. Not again.

Please not again…!

_He couldn’t even brace himself._

_He screamed as fire thrummed through his body. And once again, he was left writhing with agony._

…………..

Sometimes, 015 dreamed when he could, when he allowed himself to.

His body never really felt the urge to fall asleep when he was tired, so he was usually left staring out as if in a haze, consciousness far gone into the deepest recesses of his mind where no one else but him could penetrate, and his body, though dormant, stayed on high alert, hand near the holster of his gun, the other poised across his chest and stomach, a defensive position he’d specially created, where nobody would be able to touch him without the risk of their necks snapping. He called it his ‘autopilot’ mode.

No one disturbed him during his autopilot mode.

This time, he was sat perched by the helicopter window on their way back to Base, gaze leering on the semi-reflective, translucent screen, but never at the shimmering reflection of the moon against the northern waters of the Okhotsk Sea , or the lonesome clouds spread sparsely across the sky, or the measly expanse of stars barely sprinkling itself over the night’s darkness. His mind was never able to sustain such luxuries. Was never made to.

_And besides_ , 015 smirked slightly to himself. _The moon was overrated._

The only thing he could truly, only ever dream about, went far beyond the unreachable bodies of the Earth. It ventured past unneeded memories and unwanted, forgotten feelings he’d long since discarded and abandoned for an inestimable amount of time for the sake of his own sanity. Past locked, unbreachable walls and barbed ramparts and defenses so armed to the teeth, it was almost impossible for he himself to penetrate through the one place he’d never allowed the darkness to rupture. In that dream, he was at his happiest, at his saddest, at his angriest, and at both his best and worst.

In that dream, he was drowning.

And drowning had never felt so fulfilling.

…………

**Day 1: Pre-Experimentation Test#1**

**Ninth Hour**

_“Stop… please… I’m tired,” Tsukishima begged after the water had drained down, and his back came in contact the bone-chilling metal once more, his body quivering and twitching, and burning and scorching, overwhelmed by the copious amount of pain he had to continuously endure._ It hurt so much…

_He threw his head to the side and retched out a puddle of water, feeling his throat burn with the effort._

God… someone… _anyone…_

_The lights above him flashed red again for the sixteenth time._

**… Please kill him.**

_Water rose from the bottom once more, and when he opened his mouth to plead—because it was all he could do—a miserable sob escaped him instead, sounding more broken and tired than anything, knowing nothing he did would eventually help him in stopping the torture._

_He felt something in his chest rip apart and break as he screamed, and a thin line of blood flowed from his mouth, and through the vibrating, burning water._

_They did it twelve more times before he’d lost consciousness._

_And within the duration of those twenty-four times, his cries of agony had morphed into wails that wished for death, as his throat ruptured over and over and over again, and the water continued to be tinted in red._

………..

“You did that thing where you shot at their eyes again?”

If 015 observed closely enough, he could identify the faintest of chuckles from the tone of the Commander’s voice, amusement alight in the low, deep intonations of his every word as he listened to his mission report. 015 continued to stare ahead, tone unchanging, face expressionless.

He hated this man.

“Yes sir.”

“You are entertaining as always, 015.”

“Thank you, sir.”

They were sat somewhere within the Base, far outside the Central Command’s headquarters and in the middle of an artificially based garden. Foliage and greenery bursting with bright leaves and sprouting flowers that made his stomach churn and left him feeling queasy with every passing second he sat there. They were playing Chess today, the faux sunlight radiating from the middle of the garden’s dome gleamed serenely on the ancient black and white chess board, reflecting mockingly against the near empty space that was 015’s side of the boardgame.

“You know, if you move your knight here, you could easily call checkmate.”

“Excellent evaluation sir,” 015 muttered jadedly, instead choosing to move his rook further inward in an attempt to protect his most valuable pieces. “However, your pawn would have easily defeated my knight, giving your queen more leverage against mine.”

The Commander hummed, a small grin tugging at his lips. “You were always the smart one, weren’t you, 015?” His next movements were swift, filled with confidence and gusto as he used his awaiting knight to flick his last rook piece to the side, garnering victory and entrapping his king and queen quite easily. “Nevertheless… It is my victory for today.”

015 kept his eyes locked on the rolling piece of his white queen.

He hadn’t seen him coming.

_He felt a familiar emotion swell within his chest_.

Was it anger? It was the only emotion he ever felt despite the general numbness that plagued him day in, day out. _Was he sad? Annoyed?_ He couldn’t tell. The Commander’s seat dragged softly against linoleum floors as he rose to his feet, dusting off non-existent specks of dust from his immaculate military jacket, and all he was able to note of himself was that he felt something hot bubble in his chest, a slowly rising ember of flames that constantly stayed silent even when in the presence of this man that brought him so much—

A hand landed on his shoulder.

_So much—_

He looked up. The Commander’s eyes looked almost dull and lifeless, and at the same time also brimming with mirth and a single splotch of fictitious warmth swimming inside dark-grey irises.

“We have a picture for you today.”

_Pain_ …

And slowly, demurely, 015 stood and walked behind his Commander, his feelings of hatred having never once conceded, although remained dormant as his emotions were once more brought to nonexistence.

……….

**Day 1: Pre-Experimentation Test#1**

**Twelfth Hour**

_When Tsukishima regained consciousness, awareness engulfed him in overwhelming sensations creeping up and down the inside of his skin, and he found himself shooting upwards, sore throat wheezing sharply as he gulped down air into his lungs, his chest expanding and contracting, breaths shuddering as he felt oxygen that never seemed sufficient enough leave and pass through his air cavity._

_Tsukishima found, that he was no longer lain atop metal, or surrounded by the cold, iciness of a flooded machine quickly filling up with constantly rising water, his hands strapped to the metal board, and his skin on fire and hurting and in endless, agonizing pain._

_He was surrounded by white walls, and was lying on top of a bed, pure white sheets rested over his legs and stomach, and body dried and covered in thin, white hospital scrubs._

Had it… been real…?

_Tsukishima let the thought roam briefly before quickly refuting the theory. There was no way that had been a dream._ His throat clogged as he could still feel the cold of the water engulfing him. _It had felt too real, and he was still burning… from the inside out, he was still burning._

_He raised a shaking hand to his heart, feeling it thump unsteadily against his chest._

And… he was alive.

_Tsukishima felt his back of his eyes_ _sting, hand squeezing the cloth over his chest tighter._ He was alive… _but in no way did it feel relieving, in any sense or form._

_Sensing liquid run down the back of his throat, Tsukishima jolted forward and gasped, placing his hand around his neck, and shuddering at the feeling of the collar pressing against it. It was so cold, and tight, and suffocating. It felt like it was choking him. Felt like it was blocking his airways, and jamming up his throat, and filling up his lungs till all he could feel and taste was water, and no matter how hard he gasped and inhaled he couldn’t breathe—_

_His hand clutched at the sheets strewn across his legs, the other hanging around the top of his neck as he fought for air, coughing and gasping and fighting against the feeling of being engulfed whilst burning and writhing in agony._

He needed to breathe. _He was drowning._ He needed to breathe…!

_In his panic, Tsukishima failed to notice the faint hissing of room doors sliding open and shut, quiet footsteps approaching against cold, plain, white tiles, and stopping but a small distance from his bed._

_He only began to realize he wasn’t alone when a different pair of light footsteps ran across the room towards him, a cold, gloved hand grasping his wrist on top of his sheet covered thigh, and jolting him back to the present, momentarily, ceasing his pained wheezes and desperate gasps._

_“It’s okay,” his voice melted past his panic logged mind, drawing his head and body away from the memories and sensations tormenting him. His grip on the sheets softened slightly. “It’s okay… you’re not drowning, shhh…” he cajoled, his other hand gripping the one on his neck, and lowering it down to his lap, his fingers gently squeezing his in an attempt to ground him. “You can breathe. Can you breathe for me? One… two… one… two… like that, okay?”_

_Tsukishima tried his best to follow the voice breathing in with him._

_“In and out… just like that. Good. That’s good,” The male beside him continued, still holding his hand and squeezing his fingers. When Tsukishima bothered to spare a glance to the person, he was met with a head of short, brown hair, dark grey eyes and a face yet to be lined with age. And he wasn’t in a suit. He wasn’t covered by a mask, or shielded in oppressive, blinding white—although his uniform was white itself, it had creases ad folds, and lines of black and blue designing the surface. He was human, unlike the robotic, faceless things he’d earlier seen._

_Although looking past him, he found the male beside him—maybe a nurse?—wasn’t the only one not veiled in a mask._

_Barely three feet away, stood a Suit, and an individual man right next to them._

_He wasn’t dressed in white, and was in fact fully donned in a navy-blue military-esque outfit. He could hardly see his face, although he didn’t need to squint his eyes to perceive he was ripe with age, his dark hair cut down a few inches from his scalp, and a faint, sharply carved beard that ran over his mouth down to his chin. If Tsukishima had to procure a candid description, he would say the male looked like a war veteran stereotype._

Who were these people…?

_“This is our Subject Number 015?” the man began—and there they were with that stupid moniker again—_ Subject 015— _as though he were nothing more than an anomalous aberration in a test tube. At his side, both the young male clad in a doctor’s coat, and the minute statured Suit a little far off, stood upright at attention as soon as the dark-haired male had parted his lips to speak. Tsukishima gripped tightly at the sheets over his legs._

_The younger male nodded swiftly, angling his hand to his head in a salute. “Yes, Commander sir.”_

_The ‘Commander’ hummed, unfolding a hand from behind his back and bringing it to his chin, eyeing Tsukishima with apathetic interest. “And how are the initial stages of the Preliminary tests?”_

_“They are going rather well, sir,” The male in the doctor’s attire smiled, almost excited, as he retrieved a tablet from the desk at the foot of Tsukishima’s bed, promptly handing the device over to the large man and watching with enthusiastic interest as he scrolled through it. “Both Subject 056 and 015 have responded particularly well, and the test results have shown remarkable potential for rapid development this early in the stage—”_

_Tsukishima was going to be sick._

_This couldn’t be real._

_“Uhm… excuse me…” He could barely hear his own voice beneath the hoarse croak and sore discomfort around his own throat, the inner walls of his air cavities still feeling as though they were alighted with the sensation of burning fire. Nevertheless, the conversation before him stopped, and both men turned to face towards his immediate direction. His heart stoppered at the Commander’s cold eyes perched directly on his person._

_“… who the hell are you people…?” He felt as though his voice had echoed through the chamber’s entirety, through the space of the now silent room, even though nothing but a croaked whisper could only be heard from his damaged tracts. “What the hell do you want with us?” Unbidden, tears gathered at his eyes, reminiscing Yamaguchi’s frightened face as the Suits had forcefully grabbed onto his arms, remembering Kageyama attempting to fight back and Hinata banging his head against the glass as electricity shot up through their heads. “_ Why are you keeping us here?! _What the hell do you want?!_ ”

_He could hear the sound of his pounding pulse rage through his ears, his blood heating up and his knuckles turning white as his grip on the sheets tightened. Through his rage, his questions went unanswered, and as the Commander cocked his eyebrow in response, the room’s temperature suddenly felt as though it had dropped several degrees lower._

_“Dr. Kaname.”_

_“Yes, sir.”_

_The sharp, hot,_ agonizing _, pain that rippled through his head was sudden and unexpected. It was unbearable in all the ways it hadn’t been before, and with every passing second it felt as though his brain was being ground and shredded apart, piece by excruciating piece. A painful scream emerged from his blistered throat, the feelings of pins and needles engorging its entirety as the collar’s effect—_ It **had** to be the collar!— _sent him spiraling and grasping at his scalp with sterile, ragged nails._

_When it stopped, his face was unbiddenly wet, an uncanny mixture of tears and sweat dripping down and soaking into the clean white bedsheets and covers, and his quivering hands still grasping at his skin and hair._

_Tsukishima was sure someone was saying something, anything, but he was wanton to hear past the static that had crawled over his ears and the wholeness of mind, a black, inky murk creeping through the small fracture in his head and hindering his cognition and ability to simply_ think for one second—

_“—ject 015!”_ _A heavy grasp on the curls of his hair jostled him out of his arising mental pandemonium, the subsequent shaking and manhandling grounding him back to the world he had awoken to. Tsukishima gasped, releasing his own grip on his head and averting his once unseeing gaze to the Suit at his immediate side, its grip on his hair forcing him to turn his face so he was staring right at the Commander’s grueling, taciturn judgment._

_“Subject 015,” his voice was equally as cold when addressing him, hands pressed and folded behind his back again and tablet now in the Doctor’s hands. A screen in front of him had lighted up, but the glaring blares of the LED were yet to veer away his insipid awareness of the man examining him from where he stood. “Subject 015,” he repeated. “You would do well not to speak out of turn. Am I understood?”_

_The blonde felt something stir within him… he wasn’t sure what to call it. It felt like cold, dripping fear trickling down his spine. At the same time, it was the sensation of stony dread pooling coarsely within the depths of his stomach._

_There was silence once again, as though his lack of response was response enough, soon to be filled by the flashing of a tv screen, and the screams of a woman as she begged for her dear life._

……….

_He’d grown facial hair_.

That was the only thing 015 could think as he stared at the photo in his grip, the edges of the polaroid crinkling beneath calloused, shaking fingers. The dirty-blonde man in the picture sat, or stood—he couldn’t tell—with a hunch on his back and tired, dead eyes staring back into the flashing camera, both stress lines and age marking the face he’d once known to be young and full of life. He remembered unscarred skin, and bright eyes, and glimmering, beaming laughs.

He remembered hair ruffles, and unwelcome hugs.

He remembered his brother always having a smile on his face.

**_No_ ** _…._

_No… wait._

The adamant creasing caused crinkles to appear on the picture’s face, further marring the individual’s already blemished features.

‘ _That guy_ ’ was the one that had a brother. ‘That guy’ was the one that remembered.

_015 had no family._

015 just had people he had to protect. Well… he also had people he had to kill as well. But it was all the same. It was always just a mission.

“It has been seven years, 015,” The Commander’s voice broke through any thought process the blonde might have had, swiftly bringing him to quick attention. He was standing at his Central monitor back at Base Command, and as usual, was perched on his platform and overseeing all progressing undertakings with a stony, discerning gaze. 015 made sure to peer straight ahead, dropping the wrinkled picture to his side. “Do you still remember the prisoner?”

“… Yes, sir,” he answered truthfully.

“That’s good,” the man commended, features unyielding at the discomfort he must have sensed wafting from his prized soldier. “That prisoner is going to be facing his death penalty in 72-hours.”

015 hid his surprise well.

He stomped down the feelings he had so desperately tried to kill for the past near-decade. _If only he could just forget completely_.

“Do you wish to prolong the prisoner’s life?”

The question was direct, straightforward. Yet it sent the slightest of chills down his spine. He wondered what it was. “Yes, sir…”

“Excellent.” Through the cold pall that was the Commander’s full ambience, he sensed the most miniature dollops of _joy_ hidden beneath that deadened countenance of his. He even managed to spot a smile quirking up the usually stilled lips. “Then your next mission must be conducted with utmost efficiency. I trust you can complete it within 36-hours?”

015 nodded. The message was clear.

“Yes, sir.”

_Complete the task before the next two days, or lose the only family you have left_.

……….

_Tsukishima’s irises were mere pinpricks against the white of his eyes as he could only stare unblinkingly into the blinding screen. Words remained unspoken, only leaving through agape lips in hoarse, silent, yells of terror._

_What the hell._

_What the hell what the hell what the **hell whatthehell** —_

_The clip had stopped playing seconds ago, yet it had repeated within his mind’s conscious more than a million times. His hand went to his throat, and he jolted forward as he fought to upheave his entire stomach, tears that never seemed to dry cascading in endless spades and further soaking every cloth beneath him._

_No. **No no no no no no—**_

_That wasn’t his mother._

There was no way, right? There was no way that had been her screaming bloody murder as she was being gunned down by masked men. That wasn’t right.

His sweet, innocent, mother…

_His throat burned and he shook his head in constant denial, continually muttering out ceaseless ‘no’s’ as acidic bile splattered onto the sheets, finally staining the sterile blankets in something other than blinding white._

The scene played again in his head. The man chasing her down. His mother begging for her life. His mother screaming. His mother shot. His mother bleeding. His mother _dead, dead, **dead, dead**_ **—**

_“Subject 015.”_

His mother wasn’t dead.

_“Subject 015!”_

**His mother was dead.**

_It was quick, but familiar static pain shot up his head, and soon he was being manhandled to face the screen again. He fought weakly. He didn’t want to watch it again. They weren’t going to make him—!_

_This time, the static shock traveled faster and lasted longer, and soon enough he was pliant and moveable, his eyes forced open and directed towards the screen where the scene had changed. Instead of his mother, it was Akiteru. It was his brother._

A new bout of fear traversed up his spine. _Briefly, he wondered if he was going to have to watch his brother die too._

_Tsukishima only had to look closely at the scene relayed to note that his fears were not at play._

_Somehow, this was much worse._

_Akiteru was on screen with his head against the hood of a police vehicle, several cops and armed officers surrounding the street of his neighborhood as his brother was being cuffed brutishly by a harsh looking police officer, anger evident in the cop’s eyes through the screen, as the headlines right at the very bottom read out in bold, flashing, yellow letters:_

_‘ **Police arrest homicide convict as body is found inside home of Miyagi citizen’**_

_And as Tsukishima repeatedly read through the words on screen, lining every kanji, hoping and praying that his sight was misleading him, he was unable to stop the new churning sensations plaguing his insides and the reawakened tremble in his limbs, and it was all he could do to stop the upheaval of bile and residual water from expelling onto the sanitized floors beneath the hospital bed, as he was once again tossed into mental pandemonium,_

_And, little by little, ever so slowly, he could feel his mind fracture._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading! Pls feel free to tell me what you think in the comments 😄 I'll see ya'll again in one of my next (infrequent ;-;) updates!!! :D


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kageyama’s face had been the first thing he’d seen when he’d woken up back in the enclosed room after the previous day’s torment. He remembers it, remembers seeing his unblemished white robes and paled, transparent skin, blank haunted eyes that remained unseeing, shoulders hunched as he lay on the floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Umm... whoops? Sorry for the wait ya'll! Especially regarding my other fics! I really hope to be able to upload some chapters soon. On the other hand, please enjoy the new chapter of Try Again! (Took me a while to update but I'm finally here now!)
> 
> TW: Vomiting, heavy-bleeding, electrocution, emotional manipulation and... you know... torture.

**To Be Merciless is Kindness**

**056: 1**

Blood splattered on the murky, cold, concrete in a wet, gory spray, the splash slapping against the floor and resonating across the four, bare walls of the secluded room. Heavy steel-soled boots slammed against the defenseless back of a pleading male, his once, bright, mature features now sullied red and black with equal parts blood and dirt. Lifeless, blank sates of brown seemed to gander from its shadowed veil beneath a covered hood, short streaks of dark, ginger strands peeking from beneath its spectral shroud.

The sole was slammed against the back again, and its victim once more, coughed out the red, iron-tanged liquid onto the floor, shoulder joints bent and contorted by restraints, wriggling for freedom as it begged for mercy like the helpless worm it was.

_He was getting tired of it_.

Sighing balefully, he leaned down onto one knee, still keeping the foot compressed to the shivering man’s back, sharp edges cutting through the tattered material of the shirt clothing the majority of his torso. Harsh, calloused fingers dug into matted maroon locks and picked up the face from where it had been pressed pitifully against the cold terrain, detached brown eyes trained intensely on the deep, grey irises locked in permanent fear.

“You know…” His stony, emotionless voice was like a dead, wintery fortress, its chill freezing through the cracks and fissures compiling upon every surface, its bleakness sustaining its frosted ambience with mind-numbing silence. The half-dead man in his grip shook with tremors that rattled through his entirety. 056 could even feel it in his bones. “I’m growing bored…”

The middle-aged man’s eyes widened, throat distorting as he tried to swallow, lips trembling as though combatting the urge to break down into a miserable sob. “P-p-please… I-I don’t…” His breaths shook. He swallowed again, the miniscule movement looking almost painful. “I t-told you… please I—”

056 yawned. _He sounded like a broken record_.

Blood went flying once more as he slammed the lying man’s head onto the concrete.

He watched widened eyes dim and lower into unconsciousness.

Letting out a jaded breath, he rose to his feet and peeked at the watch on his wrist, running fingers crusted with dried blood through his hair as he soon recalled the mission report he was to deliver in a few hours. He swore inwardly. He’d lost track of time.

Kicking the unconscious body on the floor aside, he stepped over the growing pile of blood beneath his feet and walked over to the seemingly plane wall on his left side. A white glowing line slid across the steel wall, a subsequent hiss emitting from the surface as the direct section before him glided open, producing an exit out of the seemingly inescapable room. He eyed the two Suits that had been standing guard in front of the door, both visibly stiffening as he stepped between them, averting his gaze to the shorter statured Suit by his immediate right.

“You,” he glared at the trembling guard, slight annoyance mounting within his thinned patience at the hesitant stammer spoken in response.

“Z-z-zero Fifty-Six!” Their hand flew into a salute, back arched and head craned forward, inched at an angle preventing them from looking him in the eye. 056 merely blinked, and clicked his tongue, sighing as he rose his hand to itch lightly at his nape. _This really won’t do at all_.

“You see,” he began, unable to moderate the annoyed tone of voice his timber had taken to. He couldn’t help the sinister countenance crowded beneath the shadows of his eyes despite the forced quirk of his lips shifting his facial muscles. _What a bother_. “It’s kinda tiring, so I don’t like repeating myself, you know?”

The Suit’s gulp was audible even through the heavily geared ensemble. “Y-yes s—”

“It wasn’t a question.” He repressed another sigh and lowered his hand, shoving them into his pockets and averting his gaze away. He didn’t feel like looking at them for another second. “So, stop quaking, and go clean up the mess inside,” 015 said despairingly, already walking away in the direction of Base Command, determinedly on a mission to fulfil the latter half of the day’s tasks in due time. He needed to get back and finish this, after all.

“I need my captive breathing by the time I return. Don’t give him water.”

……….

**Day 2: Pre-Experimentation Test#2**

**First Hour**

_Hinata’s vision swam as another splatter of thick, dark blood expelled from his insides and onto the cold tile floors beneath him, his stomach clenching and his throat contracting as he retched painfully, wet, sickening, coughs burning the innards of his airways as he fought for oxygen._

_He gasped; his voice lost within pained rasps._

_Unyielding waves of spine-breaking, gut-wrenching pain pulsated ceaselessly through his body, merely increasing as the minutes trickled by and he was yet to be released from his current torment. His arms and wrists bled and ached from trying to escape the restraints keeping them raised between two pillars, his neck chaffed and rubbed raw, skin flayed and bleeding through peaking muscle underneath a thickened collar._

_Another wave of agony travelled up his burning veins, his stomach roiled, his chest burned, before he was once more jolting forward and puking out another mouth full of blood. He could see it completely soak the once-pure white robes dark-red, his vision darkening momentarily at the edges as his body’s innards were set aflame._

_It had only been twenty minutes since this had started. It felt like an hour._

_“Twenty-two minutes until stabilization,” the robotic, monotone voice that had been calling out elapsed time stamps since he was placed in the experimentation chamber spoke, cold and unfeeling and callous. It was as though they truly were a robot. Hinata wouldn’t be surprised._

_It didn’t sound like it felt anything._

_“AAAAAAAAH!” He screamed his voice raw, back arching as a startling surge of burning agony gushed through his body without warning, one of the many thin, transparent tubes injected into his neck searing in fiery, scorching agony. Through the heat and fire he could feel something crawling creepily through his veins, biting and clawing and scratching and itching, and he’d never felt like ripping off his own skin and shearing it away from muscle till it was laid rotten on the bloodied ground more than he did then. It was as though they had released a million wriggling centipedes into his neck, and each of them were clawing and fighting and chewing at his insides, eating away at his flesh and muscle till they could find a way out into the icy exterior of the outside world._

_He was sure the cuffs were slicing through his bones now, he could barely register the copious gallons of cascading blood dripping down his arms and crawling in dark-red veins, dribbling gracefully in sporadic flecks and splotches onto the metal floor. He could barely register the wild, feral cries he was releasing into the air, his throat sore and razing, eyes unseeing and glazed, tear filled over bruised, flushed cheeks. He could barely register the Suits racing around the laboratory, untamed waves of panic and excitement infilling frantic minds as machines beeped and green lights flickered. He was too occupied trying to claw away at his skin._

**_Too much too much too much too much toomuchtoomuch—_ ** **! **

THEY WERE TOO MUCH—!

_“Fifteen minutes until initial phase stabilization. Inducting Vial A56-Gamma-36 B into Subject 056 at pre-analysis stage. Running trial in five seconds. Four. Three. Two.”_

_His last sights for that minute had been the pointed needle end of another syringe slowly plunging into his neck through his collar, before he disappeared into the numbed depths of his consciousness and blacked out into the chilling void of oblivion._

****

……….

Itchy. 056’s neck was itchy.

He could feel his fingers tingle where they lay predominantly still at his sides, the blood underneath his skin buzzing and humming, his hairs nearly standing on end with the way he felt as though he was baking on the inside and was about to boil over. Worms were crawling within the skin of his wrists.

His Commander was saying something, asking him about mission reports, progress, advancements, training, assignments, _assignments, assignments_ —!

And of course, he answered. Who was he to defy his creator, after all?

His lips and tongue moved automatically, spewing out rehearsed lines and practiced phrases, shoulders straightened and gaze peered forward, the perfect paradigm of a model soldier. He was nothing less than flawless, composed, seamless, and he would revel in the praise and trust of his Commander at any and all seconds of the day. 056 would often hear the other Suits speak about how he was treated better than the other ‘Experiments’, often calling him an ‘eager lap dog’ and ‘Pitiless Mongrel’. _They were put in their place, of course_. Though his Commander’s mirthless chuckles lessened in their amusement when he found the body of a poor Suit decimated across almost every corner of The Base.

He’d even been commended of a clean job, but had been left with a warning about wasting resources. Even though they were laughably expendable.

He had clicked his tongue silently at that.

The man could easily replace any of those faceless, spineless dust mites whenever he pleased.

_Though, as of now, his mind was far from his Commander_.

**He’d seen him**.

Black hair barely obscured by a widened hood, broad unmistakable shoulders and long, rigid gait. _How could he forget?_ The supposed Experiment that had been told would surpass him in rank and ability. The rival that he had never once beaten. _The rival that existed in his current life and his previous existence_. The rival he was yet to kill.

021.

His finger twitched. He could almost feel a face splitting grin about to conjure upon stiff, rigid muscle. He could feel fire blaze beneath his skin.

_Seven years._ He’d been kept waiting for seven years.

“056.” His Commander’s voice was loud and imposing, echoing within the freezing chamber surrounding the cold ether roving over their stiffening presence. 056 blinked once, slowly breathing in the raucously filtered oxygen that composed the air and looking up at the tall, suited male upon his podium, commanding and unreachable. A searing darkness that somehow shone brighter than the light surrounding their dim existence. His hands were folded at his back as they always were. Though this time, there was an entertained curl to his lips. _Had he noticed?_

“Sir.”

“Are you focused, 056?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You must remain focused, 056.” The ginger-haired soldier stood silent, and in all but one second, at the glowering mirth of his Commander’s gaze, and the low timbre of his imperious words, the itching in his neck reduced to a slow, numbing pulsation, and his buzzing lowered into a barely decipherable hum. _Of course. Of course_. His exhale was slower, calmer. He couldn’t lose sights of his existent and nearly unattained objectives. _At least not yet_. He had so much to do for the Commander. After all…

_He could always chase 021 at another date_.

It really had been years. He couldn’t wait to fight him again.

His Commander had released him without another prompting for an awaited assignment, discharging him through the cold, hissing doors of Base Command and back into the dim lit corridors in less than a half-hour. The man in charge of all would know about his current, progressing devises more than anyone. _It would be quite disappointing if he didn’t, really_.

How glad he was, to be indulged so freely.

He turned in the opposite direction of his prior arrival, and promptly made his way back to his captive’s room of the day. _He had so much work to do_.

……….

**Day 2: Pre-Experimentation Test#2**

**Third Hour**

_He’d been wrong, Hinata thought, his haze-filled mind evoking the scarring activities of what he’d recalled to be the previous day, remembering the blazing, excruciating heat of the horizontal cauldron, remembering water-filled lungs and blood tinged water, choked off breaths and garbled discordance of discontinued pleads and hopeless tears hidden behind burning marine._

_He’d been wrong about anything else being worse than the feeling of drowning in electricity- sodden suffering._

_The bleeding had eventually stopped at the near-end of the second hour, the blood running down his nose having dried and clotted alongside the streams of red formerly seeping from within his ears and through his red hued eyes. Though Hinata still choked on thin trickles of blood clambering up his throat every other minute or so._

_Beyond the consistent ringing pounding through his aching head, and the swells of agony rising within his body, he could hear the nattering of the Suits pattering and marching about, rising swells of hurried beeping and ringing through the wide space of the experimentation room. They regularly changed and replaced and added more tubes and needles into his fleecing neck through the holes in his collar, sometimes adjusting the cuffs on his wrists, other times shining lights into his eyes and prodding at limp limbs._

_It was all a process. Rinse and repeat and rinse and repeat._

_Hinata eventually became numb to it._

_“Vial A91-Gamma-91 B processing. Induction Underway. Subject 056 Stabilized. Adjusting compound inductor and proceeding with inoculation. Proceeding in 10 seconds. 9. 8. 7…”_

_Kageyama’s face had been the first thing he’d seen when he’d woken up back in the enclosed room after the previous day’s torment. He remembers it, remembers seeing his unblemished white robes and paled, transparent skin, blank haunted eyes that remained unseeing, shoulders hunched as he lay on the floor. And Hinata must have made some sort of frantic movement, because the setter’s head had jolted up immediately and had stared the ginger-haired male straight in the eyes. He could almost hear his voice too, the grateful mouthing of ‘Hinata’ from shaky lips, the deep-sea blueness of his eyes drowning and sinking and infilling as though he couldn’t get enough of the other’s being just_ being _there._

_He remembers putting his hand on the glass, in tandem with Kageyama’s own movements, silent streams of tears cascading down winded cheeks and a trembling jaw._

_He remembers Tsukishima being carted into his own room, unconscious and looking as though he were dead._

_He never saw Yamaguchi being brought in._

_“A83-Gamma-24 Z stabilizing. Heart rate stabilized. Entering Phase three.”_

_Hinata lurched forward and spewed blood through his teeth._

_His insides twisted in tormented wrenching._

_._

_He wondered what they were doing to his teammates, at that moment. Whether they were experiencing the same levels of torture, whether his was worse or theirs was better. He wondered whether they’d met the man in the military suit and the doctor who called him a ‘Commander’. He wondered if they had shown them the bloodied corpse of their parent and the hopeless, undeserved fates of their loved ones._

_He had dangled their lives on a thinning, withering thread before his eyes and played with the scissors’ blade in a threatening willingness to prune it._

_It was unforgivable._

_A Suit held up his chin and replaced the tube in his neck with another one, letting his chin drop back in a graceless limp to his chest, and they called out the numbers again. Another countdown. Another agonizing sensation. Ah._

_… Blood was dripping down his nose again._

_Ahead of him, at the entrance of the torture chamber, the doors slid open in a near-silent hiss, and the wandering, chattering Suits all halted in collective unison as their approaching symbol of authority sauntered into the room with a relaxed curl of his lips and a clipboard tablet in his hands._

……….

It seemed he really didn’t know much, after all.

056 sighed, letting the knife clatter to the floor and releasing the taut hair gathered in his fists till the man’s head slumped lifelessly against his chest, stuttering cavity slowly heaving in oxygen as though the action itself was pure suffering. The man was unconscious, pitifully so after he’d merely carved out the skin of his face, exposing red, bleeding muscle and gum into the mercilessly cold room. Ordinary humans were weak, really.

Though this one was impertinently strong-willed. He’d almost thought his time spent was going to become a little more interesting, having tried two brutal extraction methods only to be met with futile pleas and feigned ignorance. _He eventually caved in like the others, though_. It was a pity. He’d almost made him grin a little.

_Number 26_. He relayed the information given within his head, putting a hand to his chin as he recalled previous interrogations and their preceding answers. He felt his lips twitch.

The address was _that_ close huh?

056 chuckled lightly.

“Nice work, sensei,” he muttered, placing a hand on his former teacher’s matted, bloodied hair and crouching down so he was staring into blank, unseeing eyes, lids partially fallen and expression hollow and void. He barely looked like the same man that had taken care of a group of eager, rambunctious volleyball teenagers a few years back, offering them stringent words of literary poetry as encouragement. Change truly was apparent in humans, especially when it was forcefully induced.

He had hated the moment the man had recognized him, surprised gaze widened and teeming with violent, bewildered fear, shoulders trembling and mouth agape.

_He’d taught him a lesson when he attempted talking to him as though he were still that weak, fifteen-year-old boy that wanted nothing more than to fly above looming, mountainous walls._ He’d made sure to laugh too, reveling in the gradual trickle of dreadful realization that his poetic words were never going to reach him again.

_In fact_ , 056 inched his hand back towards the red-glazed knife on the floor, gripping deftly onto the well accustomed handles and raising the pointed end against his neck’s slow pulse. _Your words are never going to reach anyone ever again_.

Blood spurted like a water fountain as the blade sunk in quickly and deeply, an elegant cascade of flying red and iron dashing forth and creating its final pattern on the decimated concrete.

It was done.

_The total extermination of his present’s foundation will soon come to a finish._

And he will be the cause of its final end.

……….

_They called him Dr. Kaname, a somewhat mild-mannered, soft-spoken, composed, serene personality, a man holding so much presence that it caused the Suits to pause for a second in inactivity, paces stuttering and chatters quieting minimally. Hinata even had to look up for a moment in his daze, consciousness floating in and out of upset equilibrium as blood continued to be expelled from his orifices_.

_He registered the Doctor’s scolding tone as he urged the Suits to continue working, more gloved hands and prying prods probing away at every inch of his skin, movements even faster now, more eager, more efficient. It seemed the Doctor was here to monitor the experimentation’s advancements, because he was interacting with the other personnel in the chamber, glancing over computers, speaking amongst scientists and workmen alike._

_Numbers and Vial names were called._

_And it was as if something that was once dead instantly revived within him, because at the very next second, like clockwork at the end of a countdown,_

_He screamed._

_His back arched and his head flung back, his hoarse throat harboring splits and soars with how much he strained to release his anguish into the air. He was sure his cuffs had cut into bone, his weak limbs flailing and writhing in vein effort to escape. Sizzling, Charring, **Crackling** energy cut through his skin and stung brutally at the blood underneath it. Every cell felt enflamed._

_Electricity._

_The tubes protruding from his neck buzzed and hissed, the liquid within it bubbling, frothing, rising, **hurting** —!_

_“AAAARGH. STOP IT, STOP IT PLEASE!!!” He didn’t even recognize his own voice, croaked and hoarse as it was, strained in its rabid screams and cries. His sobbing was loud and without abandon, hopeless and scared and **terrified** — _

When did it end?!

_“I’M SORRY, I’M SORRY, I’M SORRY,” He wasn’t sure what he was apologizing for. But there was something he must have done wrong. If not, why was he suffering so much?! Did he not take care of his mother well enough? Was it his sister? Did he do something to her he wasn’t aware of? Was it his friends? Had he been horrible to someone without knowing? He didn’t know. He didn’t know! He really tried! He didn’t mean to. He was just—_

_The lights around him flashed red._

He just wanted to play volleyball with his friends.

_“Subject 056 Destabilizing! Vial A56 Terminated. Vial A91 Terminated. A83-Gamma Stable. Initiating Protocol 398B Theta—”_

_Stinging, iron liquid mixed in with the petrified torrent of tears fell from his eyes, his heaving and sobbing echoing across the now quieted room of the chamber, chains rattling in tandem with his trembling limbs and quivering back, even as the electricity came to a cease, and the Doctor began walking towards him._

_“I’m s-sorry I-I didn’t want to—I didn’t mean to. Please. I just wanna go home. I want my mom. I want my sister… Please—please—please— **please** —”_

_“Shhh,” A gentle hand picks up his chin from his chest, forcing glazed, tear- and blood-filled eyes to meet the glass covered, serene blues of the Doctor before him. Dr. Kaname’s smile was tranquil, the epitome of calmness and serenity. Even his touch was somewhat comforting, holding him gently like a warm caress. Hinata’s distressed garbles only lessened slightly, his lips still trembling and his jaw still shivering. The man was smiling, another gloved hand reaching up to wipe the sweat off of his forehead with a soft, white handkerchief. “It’s okay, you didn’t do anything. You mustn’t apologize.”_

_Hinata gasped, clenching his fists caged by the cuffs and coughing wetly and throatily. His frame racked, and he shook his head, unable to stop the tears cascading down his cheeks. “I d-don’t—I—” He inhaled again, feeling something in his chest burn, before repeating his prior actions and coughing once more. “I c-can’t—I’m s-s-sorry… I don’t—”_

_“056.”_

_That wasn’t Hinata’s name._

_“You really mustn’t apologize.” He was smiling again, and it was reaching his eyes but not quite, the hand holding his chin was still gentle, the other hand lowering to drop the handkerchief and finding a place behind Hinata’s neck, warm palm and fingers resting snuggly against his nape._ Had their faces grown closer? _“It will soon be over.” That part was whispered, as though it were a secret just to be shared between the both of them. Fingers ghosted over the hairs along his nape. And then,_

_“Initiate the final phase, please.”_

_It was said so calmly, that it completely caught Hinata off guard when the Doctor’s grip strengthened on his jaw and neck, bruising fingers pressing into his jawbone and forcefully tilting back his head till the front of his neck was exposed, the hand at the back seizing a nice fistful of hair in his strong grasp. He could not even struggle. “Hurry up, if you will.”_

_He managed to shift his gaze to the new vial and tube approaching him, a mass of swirling, bitter black flowing disturbingly through the tube and injection attached to its long end._

_Hinata screeched, instantly recognizing the black chemical compound. It was the same one attached to the immediate anterior of his neck. The same one that started the burning, churning sensation in his insides and had him vomiting blood and hemorrhaging from almost every hole in his body._

_No, no nonononono—!_

_“N-no! Please, I don’t want it!” He cried, struggling to relinquish the Doctor’s grip on his jaw and neck, ultimately failing and shivering in newfound fear at the thought of going through a new batch of the black vial. “Please!” He was bawling again, restraints clattering on bleeding wrists. “I can’t, I can’t take it anymore! P-please—” He shifted his quivering gaze to the man personally confining him, his breaths hitching as sobs continually wracked his body. “D-doctor I—”_

_“056.” The relative calmness of his voice turned sharp in an instant. The grip on his jaw intensified, purple bruises already forming upon the tender surface. “It’ll soon be over. Stay still.”_

_A choked gasp escaped him as it was plunged harshly into his neck, the instant heat and sharp stings of pulsing pain flowed through his body like it did before, and just like the previous time, **intense agony**. His body shook as he attempted keeping his screaming inside, jaw clenched and teeth gritted in undergoing torment, escaping tears running down the side of his face and into his hair because the Doctor was still holding his mandible upwards._

_He wished it to be over as soon as possible._

_Dr. Kaname was not done, though._

_“Re-initiate the Voltage. An amp higher.”_

_The sobs he tried so hard to contain spilled in a wailing cacophony of uncontained screaming and shrieking, the electricity coursing through his body burning worse than it had before. The torment of his insides increased significantly, and now he was bleeding buckets from every open cavity. His ears, his eyes, his nose and his mouth all spewed out the liquid, larger and thicker, and darker than he remembered._

**_He can’t take this anymore he can’t take this he can’t he can’t he CAN’T_ ** _—_

_“AHHKGHHRH—”_

_His begging and pleading had quickly turned incoherent, head shaking frantically within the grasp of the Doctor who was_ still _holding onto his jaw, the man’s gaze no longer on his features, but now peered at the collar clenched around his neck. He had said something about the blood in his veins and the progression of his torture in fascinated elation, soft smiles turning into grins and light chuckles that heavily contrasted the blood streaming down the man’s hand and soaking the hem of his lab coat like a horror scene._

_“Good, good,” he praised, his hand petting Hinata’s hair in what should have been a soothing motion, but only serving in worsening his misery. The heavy contraction was a pain to experience. He gagged and choked on disgorging black and red, his insides sweltering as the Doctor’s hand pacifyingly ran over his scalp, soft whispers of gentle praise and encouragement breathed into his ear as sizzling electricity tormented him from the inside out. The hand lessened its grip on his bruised jaw, fingers softly patting at the discolored skin and a soft smile gracing his face as though Hinata weren’t currently wishing for death._

_And by the time the torture was finally over, by the time the electricity had died down and the vials had been removed and his robe was completely died bloody, he had no one else to lean on except for the Doctor that had held on to him through the final stages. Dr. Kaname had pressed Hinata’s head against his warm heartbeat, cradling the broken boy to his chest and offering inane murmurs of comfort through red-coated ears._

_“You did well, 056. Absolutely amazing.” And the Doctor’s voice almost sounded giddy, excited and eager as he rubbed Hinata’s trembling shoulder. “You’re going to be my most promising creation, yet.”_

_Hinata released a sharp exhale as he was suddenly hugged tighter._

_“I’m going to work on you till you’re perfect.”_

……….

The sun was set, the sky a hopeful array of rainbowed colors and silhouetted clouds against a pastel canvas, the retreating tweets of travelling birds and converging whirrs and whips of journeying vehicles and voyaging civilians dwindled and converged into the scenic ether of an atmospheric evening. The wind was soft and cool, hovering underneath lightly fallen leaves and lingering dirt and dust, leading them along its winded, uncharted path and bringing fated strews into unsuspecting lanes. Footsteps of retreating students and workers along the conduits, disharmony of teenage chatter and careless youth joining the approaching night’s atmosphere as store bells jingled and streetlamps turned on across the roads.

The countryside was quiet like this. He’d remember.

It was never fated to last long, however, as a nearing group of teenagers approaching a local pawn shop paused at the front steps to observe the lumped sack laying in wait in front of it.

A brave soul had stepped forward, lightly prodding at the sack before opening it.

And then falling backwards in terror-stricken shock as he scrambled away, screams erupting from his lips as a decimated head lolled out of the open sack and onto the street, tainting the once peaceful evening of the small, quiet countryside town.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **  
>  _A/N: Well that was a ride. What do you think of Hinata’s character? And the Doctor is becoming more sinister isn’t he? Feel free to share your thoughts! Also, this wasn't really beta'd, so sorry if there were any mistakes! Thanks for reading!_   
>  **
> 
> ****  
> _As you all know, we’ll be getting a glimpse of our final Subject, Yamaguchi in the next chapter. Please stay tuned for more! <3<3_  
> 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!  
> Comments and Kudos are appreciated!!! <3<3<3
> 
> And thanks so much for your opinions! I have decided to make it a multichaptered fic!
> 
> In case it wasn't clear, 022= Kageyama. 015= Tsukishima. 056= Hinata.


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